Mistress of Darkness
by Tatooinedweller
Summary: A vampiress attempts to seduce the world's coldest CEO. Mwahaha.
1. Default Chapter

It was one of those days, a bright sunny day that hovered over the possibility of becoming a dark, stormy day. The wind blew indicisively around annoyed pedestrians who didn't know whether to hurry before it rained or take their time enjoying the scenery of Domino City, which consisted mainly of buildings, many impressive, and other people, some not so impressive.   
  
Several teenage girls were suddenly opting for activity number two, and weren't very interested in buildings.   
  
Seto Kaiba strode confidently down the street radiating a cool, casual kind of unfriendliness and enjoying the menacing click of his boots on the sidewalk. He didn't set much stock in life's ever-celebrated "small pleasures," those were for the romantics (aka people easily crushed), but he definately enjoyed his own importance once and a while. Everyone with any to enjoy did so, and this didn't make him a bad person, though if it did he probably wouldn't have cared. Companies weren't run by good people.  
  
The wind made a brave attempt at becoming a tornado, and Kaiba's trenchcoat slapped him sharply in the face before whipping off his shoulder. There was a sigh and two gasps as one of the girls fell over. The CEO quickly straightened the offending collar, paying no attention to the rapt females. He had no time or intrest for a love life. A setment in the back of his mind was aware that he was saught after by most of the female teenage population, but the practical part of his brain which ran things (so tightly in fact that there was little chance of a coup) had decided that it didn't serve much purpose as of yet and was therefore irrelevant.   
  
He didn't go out to the shopping sections of Domino City often, but today he had a mission. Well, two missions.   
  
Mission number one: birthday present for Mokuba. For some reasion the little squirt was insulted when his gifts were ordered from Ebay.   
  
Mission two: seek and destroy. Or rather, just seek; the ever-strenuous search for competitor's products. The destroy part would come later in a blaze of anonymous glory.  
  
Finally, he stopped in front of a boyish-looking shop. Beside the demonically-smiling clowns, an extravengant display of complex-looking, moving structures built from tiny parts sat with a sticker proclaiming "I'm educational!" Despite the sticker, it looked perfect. Kaiba could nearly hear the angelic choir serenading his find.  
  
Over the door a neon sign proclaimed that the place was called "Larry's Wacky Toy World." With a self-conscious sigh, Kaiba tried to innocuously slip into what in his mind was already dubbed "Hades's Toy Closet." The bells jingled an annoyingly loud welcome, and Kaiba glared at nothing in particular while he walked quickly to the construction set, well aware of the fact that glaring at bells would not be considered a normal activity.   
  
There was a little merry-go-round spinning rather... well, merrily. Gingerly, Kaiba reached out a finger and stopped it. With an irritated little click, the base snapped off and slowly spun in a circle. Upon closer inspection, it was revealed that many of the joints had been super-glued together. So much for that.  
  
As he was leaving, he heard the steps of the shopkeeper stop as he inpsected the display, and the steps speed up and he started toward the CEO, calling out a feeble "Hey! What do you think you're-" As he rounded the corner he dropped the sentance, and Kaiba never bothered to speculate as to why.   
  
Down the street a little farther was a coffee shop, odors wafting from the open door. It wasn't a large affair, and there weren't many customers at the moment, and he was thirsty. Why not?  
  
Ordering a cafe au lait from a squirrly bartender who seemed about to pop from his attempt to make a good impression. Kaiba took a stool at the u-shaped counter. Around the bend a couple seats away, sat a young woman.  
  
Kaiba had seen gothics, and he had always admired their dress sense. Sometimes, to amuse himself, he would rate them on a scale of gothicness from 1-10, the score depending on how much they acted goth, dressed goth, radiated a goth aura, darkened the air around them, and how those factors meshed. This girl was an 11; her clothes seemed to have grown from her soul spawned in misty depths of park places.   
  
She was strikingly beautiful. Her long, straight, jet-black hair was the kind seen on pegs in halloween costume shops. She had the trademark pale face, dark colors lining her eyes, and dark red lips. The dark fabric and leather she wore was low-shouldered and tight-fitting, rather stretching the limits of decency, and draped down in places to flap eerily. Buckles adorned odd places, which was a plus in Kaiba's eyes. The whole effect was topped off (or rather, bottomed out, haha) by high-heeled leather boots and shocking, enthralling green eyes that held unfathomable depths.  
  
Currently she was bent over reading a paper. Slowly, as if sensing Kaiba's eyes on her, she raised her own eyes to meet his gaze, then just as slowly raised her head, her dark lips curved in a sensuous, predatory smile and an eyelid came down in a teasing wink. It was the kind of wink only recieved by males, the kind that Kaiba had lectured Mokuba on; if he ever saw it he was to run away. Fast. Throwing sharp, pointy things, if necessary.  
  
Suddenly, as if come out of a trance, he left Planet Goth and came back to the coffeeshop, realizing with embarassment that he was staring. If that wasn't bad enough, his heart was pounding wildly.   
  
He took a shaky sip of coffee, unsure of what to do. Feelings had never been a problem; he kept himself carefully under control at all times. What was wrong with him?  
  
A message from his eyes arrived at his brain via panik: she was coming, the smile still on her lips like the smirk of a teacher as a student gets an answer wrong.   
  
Kaiba treated her with his secret weapon: he glared.   
  
Kaiba had been told that he had remarkable, beautiful, dangerous, bitingly cold, seductive eyes (though it escaped his brilliance how they could be all these at once). If he remembered correctly, he believed the term was "icy blue" with maybe an "iced lightning" here or there. That didn't matter much to him. However, there was a very useful practical application. When he glared, anything up to and including large predatory animals (that includes humans) tended to slink away wimpering to various degrees.  
  
This woman didn't bat a painted eye, but rather sat down next to him, still smiling her demon-smile.   
  
"What do you want?" Kaiba said in what he could only hope was a steady, cold tone. In response the girl put her hand on his shoulder and leaned close to whisper in his ear, "you place, eleven?"   
  
Later, Kaiba would think back objectively and swear by his Blue Eyes White Dragons he heard the click of a camera from somewhere. No doubt the stray picture would be all over the internet. Ah well, more publicity. At the moment he was putting far to much concentration in keeping his vision steady.  
  
"I'll need a key," she whispered, not waiting for an answer to the previous question.  
  
"No." Yeah right, he wasn't that far gone. Turn up your charm a little more if you want to get this buisnessman.  
  
She did. Keeping her right hand on his shoulder, she slipped the other into his pocket and drew out a key. The rush of blood in his ears was overpowering. Dazedly, he moved to stop her, but she pecked his cheek and it was all he could do to keep from passing out.   
  
"I'll see you tonight," she whispered, and was gone.  
  
In the wake of the strange event, Kaiba stared into his coffe which, compared to his insides, was colder than, as they say, a brass toilet seat in the Arctic. Now, what had just happened here?  
  
He became aware of an older woman smiling knowingly at him. He glared, but it wasn't at his best and only caused the woman to chuckle and look away.  
  
Leaving his coffee, Kaiba slapped down some money and headed home.   
  
Approximately three steps away from the door, there was a tug on his jacket. Upon glancing in the direction of the tug, he saw nothing, but looking down he found an old, wrinkled man who would be beaten only by Yugi in a limbo contest on a world lacking knees or hips.   
  
Kaiba resisted the urge to look for men in white suits, and decided to simply stare at the little man until he either made his point or went away. After the coffeeship, he wasn't in the mood to be bothered.  
  
The little man squinted wild-eyes up at the CEO. "Be wary, master, vampires have many strange powers!" Only then did he run off into the ever-convenient dark alley.  
  
Vampires? What was that about? Did the little man mean that the woman was a vampire, or vampiress, or whatever?  
  
By the time he arrived home, he was convinced that the woman not only was a vampiress, but had powerful powers of seduction. It was the only explination. Powerful powers? By Bill, he was a mess.   
  
He pushed open the doors of the Kaiba mansion, heading to his room to work. So shook up was he, it was only then that he remembered Mokuba's present. He cursed silently, slamming down his briefcase trying hard to remember every single one of what must have been wonderful reasons for not bringing alchohol into the house while Mokaba was there.   
  
Kaiba concentrated on the comforting, familiar sounds of his laptop's start-up and amost imperceptable hum, like the purr of a kitten. The sound of a smoothly-running computer was to Kaia like John Williams to the Star Wars enthusiast, or perhaps more like the absence of splashing to someone with a fear of sharks.  
  
Unfortunately, like the man with a fear of sharks before whom his fear could be silently lurking, so a virus is often lurking just beneath the surface, waiting for the click to start its feeding frenzy.   
  
No sooner had Kaiba logged onto the internet (automatically bringing up Kaiba Corp's home page), and brought up Ebay, then a very familiar deranged rabbit began hopping all over the screen along with the enigmatic message "APOCOLIPS."  
  
Click, escape, and control-alt-delete as he may, he could not get rid of it. He swore and hooked up his specialized tracing program. Apparently the vandal was as bad at covering up his tracks as he was at spelling. For future reference, Kaiba took a notebook out of a pocket, flipped through to a blank page, and wrote the name "Bakura" with a little black skull next to it.   
  
Now for the fun job of attempting to reboot. The laptop flatly refused to be any help. Kaiba pressed keys irritatedly. Ha, "apocolips." There's someone going nowhere in life. "Apocolips." Lips. Dark ones, on a pale face...  
  
"Whatcha doing, big brother?"  
  
Kaiba swore again and tried to slam down the laptop before Mokuba, at the edge of his desk, could see the screen with "Ebay!" still across the top.  
  
"Seto! You told me not to use those words!"  
  
"So don't. What do you want?" Kaiba noticed with pride the muscles forming o his little brother's arms. That briefcase carrying was doing him some good.   
  
"I'm going to a friend's house."  
  
"Yeah, fine. Have fun."  
  
Mokuba sprited energetically to the door, but turned at the last moment. "And no ordering off of Ebay!"  
  
Kaiba watche dhim leave, suddenly feeling very... alone. Vulnerable. And that vampire was coming tonight.  
  
He was halfway to dialing his chauffur when it hit him that there was a downright dirty-minded, if not occult or possibly evil-incarnate woman who knew where he lived. And whose hand held his house key. Having given up on mental post-it notes to himself when he found they tended ot flutter away at the smallest gust of abnormality, he etched a mental .txt file on the orderly desktop of his brain to install voice-recognition locks.   
  
Now he had nearly seven hours before she arrived. He settled back into his cushioned chair and tried to think of ways to avoid the confrontation, but now he was feeling much more himself and began to wonder if there weren't advantages to allying with a vampire... 


	2. Chapter Two

Mistress of Darkness Part II  
  
8 hours later  
  
With a small smile the wealthy CEO leaned back in his seat and re-read the document on the computer screen before him (not the same one he used earlier, he had gotten a new one). He felt much better now about the vampiress pursuing him, and even found that it would be advantageous to marry her.   
  
For one, the press would be all over it, and wouldn't it look good to Kaiba Corp customers if the CEO supported... minorities?  
  
For another thing, vampires always lived in big mansions, so they had to have money, right? And money equals prestige. Prestigious people were rarely home; they always had to travel around to other prestigious people, so if Kaiba played his cards right they might not have to be together much at all. Yes, prestigious family with prestigious friends. Prestigious equals money equals power. Heck, some vampires lived in castles. They might even be of noble blood.   
  
Kaiba pictured himself sipping bourbon*, slipping subtly influential comments in the ears of influential people, in the center of a castle ballroom with tapestries draped from the walls and red carpet and a lavish dueling ring across from whom is someone who will steal your soul...   
  
A shudder slipped up his spine as memory squeezed his mind with icy talons. Okay, definitely no castle. Red's a tacky color anyway.   
  
Besides all that, maybe it would be nice to have a--his brain recoiled from the thought--wife. Unfortunately, she didn't seem the wash-cook-and-clean kind of woman, but maybe she'd be interesting in assisting him in running Kai-- at this point his objective brain violently dragged him back to reality. You're making excuses, it said. You're trying to justify what happened this afternoon, it said, but didn't think that was emphatic enough and added, moron.   
  
Finally cracking, Kaiba brought his head down on the desk. Hard. It hurt.   
  
Ouch, said his brain.   
  
Strangely enough, the pain helped clarify things, and the jolt had jarred loose all the obvious things that had hid in the back of his brain.   
  
Who said this vampiress wanted marriage? If she was after money, then it would be a necessity, but maybe she could use her seductive powers to bend his will?   
  
The CEO nearly laughed out loud. Yeah, right. She'd better not have those hopes in mind, because they had a snowflake's chance in Hades of happening.  
  
So maybe she wasn't after money. Perhaps all she wanted was... Of course, Kaiba could never understand for the life of him how a one-night-stand could be beneficial to anybody, but apparently it was done.  
  
Kaiba sighed, and realized he was tired, and glanced at his watch. And cursed. It was eleven o'clock. Judgment hour. Convincing a vampiress that she had to leave his house couldn't be that hard, could it?  
  
Um... said his brain. Coffee shop.  
  
Kaiba got up. She wouldn't be at the door, she had taken a key. So where could he find her? Should he wait for her? Wait, his goal was in avoidance. He didn't need to find her. Then again, his mansion was full of valuable stuff...  
  
Angry at her, himself, Domino City, and the universe in general, the CEO started down the hall. About three feet later, he thought he heard a noise in one of the offices, and against all normal, rational reasoning he went to investigate.  
  
It was a fairly small, cozy office, with a fireplace (with real flames if not wood, just rustic enough to be comfortable but with enough metallic overtones to keep his stomach settled) against one wall jousting with the dim fluorescents for percentage of lighting, a comfy couch perpendicular to the fireplace facing the door, and a small, round table in front of the couch. Tonight, as an added bonus, there was a bat hanging in the corner. Belatedly, Kaiba realized that the fireplace had probably never seen flame in its existence and therefore had absolutely no good reason to be on now.  
  
The bat flew down from the ceiling, but as it dropped it began to change shape in ways that would have driven any scientifically-minded soul to the happy place with mushy walls and nice men with sterilely white jackets. Kaiba simply stared. Nothing surprised him at this point; the bat could have burst into flame, grown fins, and let hair-eating monsters in from the netherworld, and he would have calmly dialed Ghostbusters.   
  
The bat now was in the shape of a human woman, the same one from the coffee shop. It spoke.  
  
"Mr. Kaiba," she crooned in a syrupy voice. "I have found my way in."  
  
"I can see that," he replied coldly, feeling his stupid heart beginning to flutter. He had to get this woman out of here. "Now find your way out."  
  
"Oh, but Mr. Kaiba," she said, "you work far too much."   
  
Oh no, she was walking closer, and there wasn't a thing he could do to stop her. He knew that now. She was like an iceberg, unstoppable in its path of destruction, and destruction was coming his way.  
  
"Ye- stay back!" he warned, narrowly avoiding an affirmative answer, but to his dismay his voice wavered.  
  
"Very well, Seto," she crooned, and kissed his cheek, much for forcefully than in the coffee shop.   
  
Fireworks went off in his brain and triggered some deeply-ingrained defense mechanism, and before he knew it he was facedown on the couch, muttering a blessing to the cushion over his head, a vase in his yet stinging hand ready for launch, the vampiress smirking and rubbing her cheek.  
  
"Play nice, Seto."  
  
"Get... away... from me!" It was difficult to speak, he was shaking so badly. His scrambled mind groped for some form of sanity. What defeats a vampire?** Holy Water? Ha, like there's any of that around here... a stake through the heart? Heh heh heh, if only I had a stake. Silver? Silver! There must be some silver around here somewhere!  
  
He looked at the vase in his hand, and was a bit startled to find that it wasn't. The vampiress had it in her long, white, slender... claws. Think negative, think negative. It just magic, after all...  
  
That should have worked. Thinking negatively was not a new concept to Kaiba. He didn't even believe in magic, but this line of thought doesn't work simply because a million brain cells can't be drunk on what doesn't exist.   
  
In fact, if Kaiba had been able to think clearly, he may have reflected that most of his brain cells were not only drunk, they had forgotten to select a designated driver, began walking home in the rain, blamed each other, gotten in a semi-conscious fist-fight, and were now lying in a gutter somewhere.  
  
In any case, the cushion was now removed, and the vampiress was seated by his limp feet and bending towards him, still grinning seductively.  
  
Weakly, he tried to push her away, but apparently his muscle cells had gone to the same party as his brain and were now beginning to argue over who was supposed to bring the umbrella.  
  
Warm hands were on his shoulders, massaging gently. The muscle cells passed out on the floor before they had a chance to get out the door.  
  
"Get..." he mumbled, using his elbows as a screwdriver into her shoulders, but to no avail.  
  
"You're so tense," she murmured teasingly.   
  
Ha, thought the few brain cells left.  
  
He felt a pressure on his neck, a light brush She had kissed him!  
  
Hold up! said the brain cells. Neck! Vampires! Bad!  
  
"Hold still," she breathed.  
  
Ah, how life bends and twists unexpectedly. Usually, it's to our disadvantage. Sometimes it's to our benefit. Almost always, however, the unlucky/lucky twist is amusing to somebody, if looked at in a certain light, and we can either laugh or cry over it. Sometimes, however, it's hard to find just the right light and angle to gaze into the amusement. These times must be given by the Being Upstairs Himself to test our perspective.***  
  
It was at this time when Kaiba's perspective was the lucky number to be tested, and it probably failed, for when the door was flung open and Mokuba stepped in, a laugh was not what came to mind.  
  
Time stopped.  
  
For one brief moment, the black-haired youngster just stood in the doorway, mouth hanging open, unsure of what was going on.   
  
For one brief moment, Kaiba got a gruesome mental image of how he looked, lying on a couch under a suggestively-clad women who was massaging his shoulders and trying to kiss him. On his (shudder) neck!  
  
Time kicked itself and began again.  
  
Mokuba broke into a wide, knowing grin (knowing? thought Kaiba later, that kid is going to get a strict talking-to...), flashed him a thumbs-up (now he definitely needs that talking-to), and hurried out the door.  
  
"It's not what you-" the shell-shocked Kaiba belatedly shouted after, but Mokuba was gone.  
  
It was about three seconds after when Kaiba realized that his little brother's entrance had broken the spell. The brain cells were up and out of the gutter, albeit with a terrible hangover, and the muscle cells had also revived and were hyped on coffee.   
  
Kaiba wasn't stupid. He learned from his mistakes.  
  
He fled.  
  
Down the hall he flew, glancing frantically for silver. All that could be seen was chrome.   
  
Chrome here, chrome there, chrome over there (you thought I was going to say 'everywhere', didn't you?)...   
  
Panic makes people do odd things. Adrenaline makes people do odd things. Hormones make people do odd things. Mixing the three is similar to the biological equivalent of sprinkling gunpowder on the floor of a flour mill in a volcano at the heart of Hades (no, not the cold Greek one).  
  
If I get through this, oh god of silver, I promise I'll never buy chrome again! I'll buy silver! Always! Lots and lots of beautiful, shiny, expensive, vampire-killing silver! I'll buy silver knives, and forks, and spoons, and shot glasses-oh man could use one of those right now-and stakes... yes, lots and lots of silver stakes... if only I could find some real @#$% silver, and not all of this !@#$ chrome!  
  
Suddenly he realized something. Mokuba's necklace: it was a crucifix! That must be why he broke her spell... But the kid was gone off somewhere now, not much chance they'd bump into each other again... okay, be honest, not much chance he'd let them bump into each other again, so he'd just have to find something else.  
  
His eyes settled an instant on a door up ahead that led outside. No, to risky; they'd be seen for sure.  
  
Once again, someone found the window of opportunity locked and decided to use the door instead.  
  
Kaiba found himself transferring a good deal of kinetic energy**** to a large steel door that had been flung open without warning, which flung it back to him with such force he was thrown onto his back.  
  
In an instant his abused brain cells decided to initiate an emergency reboot.  
  
The first thing he was aware of was the cold floor under his back. Next, he heard a triumphant voice gloating: "I have done it! I am finally in the great Seto Kaiba's mansion! Hahaha! I am truly the greatest thief in the world! (Maniacal laughter)"  
  
When his vision finally came on line along with the rest of his senses, he saw the offending door first, and a white-haired, pale-skinned teenage boy with evil eyes and an ugly striped shirt turn to see the vampiress, and gasp, his eyes growing round as basketballs and a look of horror creeping across his face.  
  
"Oh, Ra-"  
  
"Bakura, how nice to see you again!" she murmured, the smile playing at her lips.  
  
At this point Kaiba stood to his full height, and tried desperately to remember how to be menacing.  
  
"Who are you and what are you doing here?"  
  
The thief tried to recover, and placed his hand around a horrendously tacky gold ring hanging from a necklace.  
  
"I am a thi-"  
  
"Seto, dear, it's been fun, but I believe you have an unwanted visitor."  
  
Ha, chorused both Kaiba and Bakura's brain cells.  
  
"So, I shall escort him out of your house." She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him firmly on the mouth. The thief, not having Kaiba's defenses, did not resist, and collapsed in her arms.   
  
"So long," she said, dragging the limp form of the thief out the door with her, and winked as she shut it smoothly.  
  
Kaiba didn't bother to warn her that right outside that door was an active construction zone.  
  
**********  
  
On the back of a little slip of paper covered with parameters, Kaiba idly sketched the finishing touches of his stick figure while the advanced virus tracer did its work.  
  
Mokuba came bounding up beside him, glanced at the paper, and cast him a puzzled look. "Big brother, who is it you're thinking of when you 're drawing a stick figure labeled "psychotic-"   
  
Belatedly Kaiba crumbled up the paper and growled a hurried "nothing."  
  
"Look what I found in the tabloids, big brother."  
  
"You shouldn't read those, Mokuba, they're all-" he saw the picture and cursed.   
  
"Isn't that the same girl who was... over... the other day?" Mokuba's eyes got bright and teasing. "Who was she, Seto? Are you going to see her again?"  
  
"She was just-I was going to do some business with her, and she got a little... pushy. No, she won't be back. Don't hang out with people like her, Mokuba."  
  
"Sure, right, big bro! Just consulting business! Well, I'm off to a friend's house!" He winked. "Don't get into too much trouble while I'm gone!"   
  
"Mokuba, it's not-!" But he was gone.  
  
Kaiba sighed, and looked at the result. Oh, THAT Bakura... ha. Well, the guy got what he deserved, so one less vandal to hunt him down. Kaiba crossed the name out of his book.   
  
Back on ebay, a pop-up advertising a swimsuit calendar displaying a grinning blond appeared. A shy, embarrassed red flag went up in his body, which had decided that it rather enjoyed the rush it got from the vampiress, and his heart beat just the slightest hair faster.   
  
Kaiba sighed again and closed the ad. It was going to be a long life...  
  
  
  
______________THE END_________________  
  
*Okay, this little quip about bourbon is a reference to pachelbel's "seto kaiba's online diary." I couldn't resist.  
  
**Forgive me if I get my legends mixed up. For being a D&D player (why did I have to be the stinking CLERIC?!), I don't know much about mythology... I just know I'm going to kill a certain friend of mine who was the direct cause of the DM giving me griffon named Pegasus -.-   
  
*** "Now do you think God looked down on that and said 'Look! My people are having fun! NO! *stomp*' " -Ken Davis, A Twisted Mind (video) (Sorry, again, I couldn't resist)  
  
****Kinetic energy: energy of motion. (just in case someone didn't know) 


End file.
